Thomas Sowell, like Walter Williams, is a strong supporter of free trade. He just understands, like most advocates of free trade, that free trade and illegal immigration are two separate issues.
The grand fallacy of those who oppose free trade is that low-wage countries take jobs away from high-wage countries. While that is true for some particular jobs in some particular cases, it is another half-truth that is more misleading than an outright lie.
Facts are blithely ignored by those who simply assume that low-wage countries have an advantage in international trade. But high-wage countries have been exporting to low-wage countries for centuries. The vast majority of foreign investments by American companies are in high-wage countries, despite great outcries about how multinational corporations are "exploiting" Third World workers.
John Hawkins: Can you explain why protectionist tariffs on let's say steel or textiles actually end up costing America more jobs than they save?
Thomas Sowell: The number of jobs in the steel is exceeded many times over in industries making steel products, from automobiles to oil rigs, refrigerators, locomotives, etc., etc. Tariffs that save jobs in the steel industry mean higher steel prices, which in turn means fewer sales of American steel products around the world and losses of far more jobs than are saved.
More Sowell:
Outsourcing and saving Jobs
He begins with his trademark whine about being a victim of political correctness and then simply spends the next few paragraphs repeating the oft refuted myth that illegal immigrants are working for wages so low that Americans would rather be on welfare.
He then changes subjects to terrorism and tries to make one of the dumbest points that has been posted on FR in a long time; that all we have to do to prevent terrorism in the U.S. is to not allow people from Saudi Arabia to immigrate here. He doesn't even know the difference between an immigrant and a temporary visitor.
Are people no longer being taught in schools how to critically read, or is Sowell intentionally trying to build a mailing list of people who will respond to fundraising solicitations solely on emotions.